Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther helped reform the church and was excommunicated for posting a sheet on the Castle Church's door saying what was wrong with the Church. This was called the 95 Theses.

Martin Luther (born as Martin Luder, later he called himself Luther) was born on November 10, 1483 in Eisleben into an extremely tense world. Luther set off on his last trip on January 17, 1546, to his birthplace. Although he was drawn with illness, he went to settle a dispute among the Mansfeld Counts. The negotiations ended successfully. So he was born and died around the same area. He was an Augustinian Monk. Martin Luther was an important religious leader who lived in Germany in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. At that time Catholicism was the only Christian religion. Luther was a priest who spent many years studying the bible and came to believe that the Catholic interpretation of the teachings of Jesus was not entirely correct. He stated his beliefs in Ninety Five Theses, which he nailed to the door of a church in Wittenberg, the town where he lived. The pope issued a bull (letter) condemning his views. When Luther received his copy he burned it in public. This caused the Pope to have him excommunicated on January 3, 1521. That document contained an attack on papal abuses and the sale of indulgences or forgiveness by church officials. He believed that this was wrong Luther was now ordered to appear before a Diet (gathering) of German princes, nobles and clergymen in the town of Worms. Martin Luther was asked to take back what he had said/written. He refused, and the Diet of Worms condemned him as a heretic (non believer).

For the next ten months he lived in retreat in the Castle of one of his protectors. But news reached him of changes taking places in Wittenberg. Fearing that without his leadership the religious movement he had started might go astray, he returned there to organise the new church. Luther was the...